New Iraqi Premier Backs U.S. Air Campaign, Within Limits

Iraq’s new prime minister said Thursday that he fully supported the American-led airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State, but he also made clear that he opposed any broadening of the air campaign to target forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

“As a neighbor, I don’t want to be party to the disintegration of Syria or to have diminished sovereignty of Syria,” said Haider al-Abadi, who is making his first visit to the United States since becoming the new leader of Iraq.

In an hourlong interview with a small group of reporters, Mr. Abadi sought to walk a fine line been the security partnership he has forged with the Obama administration to confront the militants who have occupied much of Syria and Iraq, and his desire to maintain good relations with the Assad government and with Iran.

Mr. Abadi, who met with President Obama on Wednesday as part of his visit for the United Nations General Assembly, said that he agreed with Western fears that the Islamic State was a potential menace to Europe and the United States.

As if to underscore that point, Mr. Abadi said thathis government had gathered intelligence from captured militants indicating that the Islamic State was planning to attack subways in Paris and the United States.

But senior Obama administration officials said that they could not confirm the Iraqi intelligence, and some American officials viewed it skeptically.

Mr. Abadi has expressed appreciation for American help in combating the Islamic State, but in the interview the Iraqi leader said that he also welcomed the Iranian advisers whom he acknowledged were also in Iraq.

Mr. Abadi asserted that Iraq lacked the legal authority to stop Iranian flights to Damascus that American officials say fly over Iraqi airspace carrying arms for the Assad government.

The Obama administration has unsuccessfully pressed the Iraqi government to put a halt to the Iranian weapons shipments by insisting on inspecting suspicious flights.

Mr. Abadi was also explicit about the limits of his support for the new American-led air campaign. Saudi Arabia, which has agreed to host the training of the moderate Syrian opposition, seems to be calculating that the military campaign against the Islamic State will evolve into a broader military and political effort to force Mr. Assad from power.

And members of the Syrian opposition have expressed hope that they might forge ties with the new Iraqi government.

But Mr. Abadi stressed that he had backed the American and Arab airstrikes in Syria after being told that the targets list would not include the Syrian military or government.

“We had a lengthy discussion with our American friends, and what they emphasized is their aim in Syria is not to destabilize Syria” but “rather to diminish the capability of Daish,” said Mr. Abadi, using an Arabic term for the Islamic State.

Mr. Abadi said that he had sent a senior adviser to Damascus to reassure the Assad government that it would not be a target. And he said that the Obama administration had also asked him to pass a similar message to the Syrians.

“We have been given that message by the Americans,” Mr. Abadi said, “although we just relay a message without any comment.”

A senior administration official declined to comment on Mr. Abadi’s disclosure that Iraq had passed an American message to Mr. Assad.

But he said the purpose of the United States’s own message to the Assad government was to dissuade it from taking military action to interfere with the bombing campaign in Syria against the Islamic State that began this week.

Mr. Abadi also said that the Iraqi government would insist on approving any strike in Iraq by the United States against the Islamic State. “I have raised the issue of the sovereignty of Iraq,”Mr. Abadi said. “We don’t want to happen in Iraq what happened in Yemen and Pakistan,” he added, alluding to American drone attacks there.

Mr. Abadi also said that he agreed with Mr. Obama that American ground combat forces should not be sent to Iraq and added that Iraq did not want other Western nations or Arab states to send combat troops either.

Regarding the development of Iraq’s own forces, Mr. Abadi said that he was prepared to decentralize power from Baghdad and was backing a plan that would allow the formation of national guard units in which Sunni regions would primarily be responsible for their own defense.

Despite his talk of decentralization, Mr. Abadi signaled that there would be tough bargaining ahead with the Kurds, who have been pressing their demands for expanded autonomy, the right to export oil and on federal revenue sharing.

“I am prepared to take hard decisions,” he said. “Kurdistan,” he added, “must take hard decisions as well. Are they part of Iraq or not? If they are part of Iraq there must be given and take. Part of Iraq is not one way.”

Michael M. Grynbaum contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: New Iraqi Premier Backs U.S. Air Campaign, Within Limits. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe